One could argue that World Cup stock has never been hotter in America than it is this morning following the USMNT’s second-ever knockout round victory. The 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina comes amid a tournament that’s thrilling audiences all over North America and smashing previous ratings records to an absurd degree.

FIFA finds itself in a position of extreme power as everyone looks ahead to the next World Cup in 2030, which will be held in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. The organization has not yet opened up bidding for the rights to broadcast the event, which will be highly contested. Fox is currently airing this summer’s competition on a $485 million deal—all in all a steal as a result of the 2022 World Cup altering its schedule. Whomever wins the honor of presenting the 2030 World Cup will surely pay dearly.

World Cup 2030 broadcast bidding

Fox, of course, is expected to make a push to keep the partnership going. The major streaming trifecta of Apple, Amazon and Netflix would love to get their hooks into the world’s largest live sporting event. Also expected to kick the tires is NBC.

Austin Karp dove into the company’s tentative plan for a piece Sports Business Journal.

NBC Universal already has Spanish-language rights for 2026 on Peacock and Telemundo. Like everything else, that project has gone really well—drawing almost half of all World Cup viewers in the United States. Adding English rights would give them a great shot at succeeding.

If for some reason I was asked to predict what will happen in 2030, I’d feel fairly confident in saying that most people will be tuning their television sets to Fox again. Though the world probably won’t be batting an eye at huge sporting events appearing on a streaming service by then. So the second-most likely option is probably whichever one of those offers the biggest deal.

A more confident prediction? Viewership will at best match that of this summer’s explosion, given that all the perfect elements are in place right now. In 2030 there will be a significant time zone difference to negotiate. Of course, if the United States can go on some sort of miracle run to the semifinals, new passion could be enough to overcome that obstacle.

Either way, it’s great morning to be FIFA.